When you look at things objectively, it's hard to pick Michigan in this one, regardless of the Gardner injury.

KSU has lost to an undefeated FCS powerhouse (can't laugh at this anymore thanks to The Horror), Texas, Okie St, Baylor, and Oklahoma. 3 of those losses are to teams currently ranked top-13 and Texas is hanging right outside the top 25. They've also won 5 of their last 6.

We, on the other hand, have lost 4 of our last 5 with "ugly" losses to PSU, Iowa, and Nebraska.

What about the way Kansas State lost their games? They got beat by 10 to a Texas team that was still really struggling. They were down 17 vs Oklahoma until 6 minutes left. They lost a 4th quarter lead to Baylor to lose by 10.

Those seem like fairly comparable loses. Kansas St is an alright squad. They aren't world beaters. I see no reason to really write off Michigan here, especially if the OL performs in any way as it did agaisnt OSU.

Texas' game against KSU was right after they started 1-2 and began a 6-game win streak. I don't think you can say Texas was struggling at that point. And I don't really see how you can compare losses to Oklahoma and Baylor to Nebraska and Penn State, either.

KSU's best win was probably against TTU, who they hammered pretty well, but the fact that it came in November as opposed to our ND win in September--I think that says something. TTU's wheels did seem to fall off at that point though, since they lost to essentially the same teams that KSU did.

After a string of wins against very weak teams, TTU did play Oklahoma tough in a loss, but then lost their last four games by between 18 and 29 points each. Any illusion that Texas Tech was ever a good team this year was lost at that point.

Of course, they also haven't lost to anyone worse than Michigan all year. Michigan has two better wins than they have (MN, ND), but they also have two worse losses (not to mention the close wins against bad teams, something K-State hasn't had--I suppose TCU compares to NW but nothing compares to UConn or Akron).

We just scored 41 points against a BCS team. Not every game our opponents lost was to the 85 Bears and not every game we won was against a middle school team. It seems like so many people here will just write off the team...

But selling the team short has became the norm as of late. I was watching"The Game" when were down 14, and its coming off a commercial, when they show this 15ish old girl in the stands with an "ABC" sign; Always Believe in Comebacks. I thought to myself, this girl wasted 2hrs of her life expecting, kinda hoping we get down so she can show her sign, i know on paper the game wasn't suppose to be close, but damn it sucks it has came all the way down to expecting to lose.

I think it's pretty clear that Gardner will ride the pine for this one. Even if he steps in for a few plays, he will be limited. Why not use this as a benchmark to see how far Morris has progressed?

On a related note, I've heard from somebody I trust that Borges will be done after the bowl game. Not looking to start a fracas or start a new thread, but sounds like there could be some shuffling on the staff regardless of what happens in the game.

Their reason for waiting until the bowl game isn't an accident either - sounds like they are going after some guys in the NFL/with late bowl games whom they don't want to disrupt, similar to what happened in 2010. I guess this must be Brandon's MO.

Two days before Christmas and we're hoping and praying a guy gets fired?

The offense needs to get better, and if Hoke can upgrade his staff he should do it, yes. But still, I'll never be happy over a guy getting fired, especially when it's simply a performance issue. We're not talking about a coach abusing his players or anything, just an offense underperforming our expectations.

I would love your source to be accurate but I'm not buying it. If they were going to make a change there is virtually no reason to leave Borges in place to coordinate a meaningless bowl game. IMO you'd have already made the change and would be looking for replacements now (Michigan would be extremely attractive given how much we are paying) as there's little, if any upside, in living him in place.

As I've said before - Hoke is not that mysterious or sneaky. He said during the season he loved and 100% agreed with Al's playing calling during the year because HE LOVED AND AGREED 100% WITH AL'S PLAYCALLING.

And when he said "there will be no changes in my coaching staff next year" he said it because "THERE WILL BE NO CHANGES IN HIS COACHING STAFF NEXT YEAR."

Replacing football coaches before the season ends is hardly standard operating procedure at Michigan. There was the one special teams coach under Carr, other than that I can't think of a single case.

Is Borges the only coach you would fire now if the rumors of a further staff turnover are true? He is still the QB coach too. Firing Borges now could be very detrimental for Morris' bowl preparation.

I think naming an interim OC is a tricky proposition. I can't help but think of West Virginia and Bill Stewart, or USC and Ed Orgeron. If the offense outperforms expectations you're left with a dilemma.

Again?
Again.
Hoke didn't say the things you're saying he said. We've all been through this before. Why do you paraphrase with quotation marks, when you're not even close to what the man actually said. The word ANTICIPATE was very clearly used, there was no "there will be no changes" comment. Stop being so disingenuous please, you don't wear it very well...
And as to the play calling; what should he have said? What would you have said?

Here is exactly what he said. You are correct that my quotations were wrongly placed on his first endorsement although I do think you're playing semantics with it's intent. That is a bad habit of mine (putting quotation marks where they dont belong) and you're right to call me on it. But would you care to make a friendly wager as to who is calling our plays next September? I'll take Borges and you can have the field.

Anyway....I hope you have a Happy Holiday no matter how much my posts annoy you.

EDIT: To answer your second question what I would've hoped he woudve said would've been something like this: "Clearly we didn not achieve the results that Al, myself or the team would've hoped for. We will leave no stone unturned in getting this right and you can rest assured that me and my staff are working non-stop to turn this around." At least acknowledge you see there's a problem to be fixed - anything less IMO is both insulting and completely disingenous.

"Still, asked if he anticipates any staff changes to occur prior to the 2014 season, Hoke said that no, he did not.

"I anticipate (this) staff (will be back)," Hoke said after attending a UAW/Ford Child Identity Program event at Ford Field.

Asked again, if he does not anticipate any staff changes for the 2014 season, Hoke responded with the following: "Correct."

On the play calling thing, I just disagree a whole lot. I don't think Borges was good this year either, but as I've said before; I don't think anyone in that type of leadership postition (M Football HC) can make any sort of public comment other than to toe the company line. It's leadership 101.

I agree with you 100% Why the hell would you fire the OC a month before the bowl when any upgrade at the position could not take the job until after? You do that and your offensive recruits start looking around. If they plan on replacing Borges, and I don't think they do, it would only make sense to do it after the bowl. A quick removal and replacement would minimize the damage.

part doesn't make a ton of sense to me, if your source is correct. You can fire a guy, name an interim replacement, and then try to get the guy you want through some quiet conversations. On the other hand, if you keep Borges for the bowl, the decision to keep or fire had better be made up. What is Morris plays and has a great game and his uniform stays clean? Then Borges would have had 2 good ones in a row...just worried about giving him another opportunity

We shouldn't expect to go 10-2 next year. We'll be three years in to a five year roster rebuild. Improved, yes, but not quite to that point. The two most senior classes (2010, 2011) will still be depleted remnants of the RichRod era.

This past season our top three classes (2009, 2010, 2011) were similarly depleted, so it makes sense this would be a "bottoming out" season and a record like 7-5.

I know I'm replying to you, but I really don't know what you predicted pre-season you just happened to bring up records and predictions. But, I find it interesting so many are predicting an 8-4 type season next year, but before this season many were predicting a 10-2/11-1 type season. For the record I predicted a 9-3/8-4 type season this year and I was a little too positive. And, I predict the same next year, which means a slightly better record than this year. I am encouraged that Hoke's first full recruiting class of 2012 is now upperclassman next year, but we still have too many question marks to assume 10 wins.

judgement on the defense until we have an offense that can make first downs and let the D rest. Just my opinion. Example: Our D played very well against MSU for a half of football. MSU scored almost all their points in the 2nd half when our D didn't have time to take a breather.

But see- we moved the ball too quickly in those games. So we scored, but we were still back out on D too soon. Can't you see this is all Borges' fault for not knowing the optimal time for a possession and holding our players accountable to that time!

The defense gave up a lot of points, but damn if they didn't make teams work for it. They forced teams to make NFL throws, and our opponents made them. When they didn't, the defense capitalized. They got run over by Carlos Hyde but damn near everyone did.

On the flip side the offense wasn't even holding their own for much of the season so much as get completely manhandled. As the season wore on, MSU's young offense improved whereas Michigan's got worse.

Mattison implemented a very simple scheme his young unit could execute and walked the fine balance between bend and break until the offense completely failed and then they imploded against an A+ offense. Borges got all gimmicky with his young line and had to keep dumbing it down until they were running high school slide protections against the toughest defenses in the B1G.

Neither side was great, but the defense isn't what keeps me up at night.

The defense gave up a lot of points, but damn if they didn't make teams work for it. They forced teams to make NFL throws, and our opponents made them.

I bought that line after the ND game ("Rees is just an improved passer") but it continued to happen all year. Truth be told, most QBs nowadays can make almost any throw. You can't count on them to screw up on their own.

TeamRankings and Massey still haven't moved too much from their initial projection of Kansas State being favored by 3.5 points, although Massey gives a projected median score of 34-30 to TeamRankings' 30-26, so the models say slightlight different things about the outcome. Both project Michigan's estimate win probability at about 40% as well, which I think is down a smidge from when the bowls were first announced. Interestingly, using Sagarin ratings, as I recall (having not done the math for a week now), the projected difference was only 2.2 points or something in that range.

by nose tackles about 1/2 way through the season and I think it's fair to say that he was playing injured for most of the season given his severely decreased foot speed. I would think Morris would have at least comprable foot speed to what Gardner displayed during the season given the injuries.

The D actually played decently that day, despite some brutally hot weather. The killer was that we missed two FGs (and a PAT, if I remember correctly). Hayden Epstein was about the most Jekyll/Hyde kicker ever, capable of making from 55 and missing from 25.

Said he, "anticipates that everyone on the staff will return next year." When asked again, he replied, "correct." So there may be some gray area there, but seems unlikely. I still think we beat ksu by at least 10 points.

If we get blown out, look horrible on the field or the coaches look unprepared, any of you think change then is necessary with the coaching staff? Even with DG possibly out, we should hold our own, but with the losses still fresh in my mind from this past season, I am weary.

As we all remember from the beginning of the season, we looked like the best team in the conference against ND, CMU and some-what Minny. So going off what we saw in September, we could be, and a KSU team that isn't the same without Klein, I figure even if we do lose, that we still would keep it a respectable game. Unless of course, Al goes tackle over on us. I agree that this team looks more and more like a sub caliber team, but we should hold our own.

KSU is favored because their program started slow and got better. We are opposite we started fast and tanked. One team plays in the 3rd best conference and the other the worse. One teams starting QB is healthy and the other is hurt.

In regards to injuries, every team loses some key players. Expecting not a single injury is just not realistic.

So at this point the market, at least the portion of it that is willing to put money behind their opinion, expects KSU to win by 3. On what would that assessment be made other than expected on field performance?

If the version of the O-Line we saw against OSU shows up in the bowl game, we've got a great chance, regardless of who is at the helm. Yes, we'd have a better chance with a Gardner because he has the experience, but I'd be excited to see what Shane can do.

The only negative part in that scenario is, if we win, and Shane looks good doing it, we might have a bit of a QB controversy heading into next Fall. But we'll cross that bridge when/if we get to it.

I've never been less sure of what I would see in a bowl game. There are times when I've been surprised (i.e. 2008 vs. Tebow) because it wasn't what I was expected, but I can't think of another game when I really had no idea what kind of product would be on the field.